Cultural perspectives on the environment

A renowned academic from Hong Kong is in Bendigo to speak about the environment and the way different cultures understand sustainability issues.

Professor John Chi-Kin Lee is a consultant for UNESCO on environmental education in China, and he's the guest speaker at a conference on environmental education at La Trobe University in Bendigo.

Although China is not renowned for environmental protection, Dr Lee says preparations for the Olympic Games have led to a greater focus on the environment, and people at all levels of Chinese society people are becoming more aware of sustainability issues.

"This issue of environmental education is becoming more important because China has a rapidly growing economy, and there is an increasing trend of environmental deterioration," he says. "So we need to serve the environment, and do things at a government level to serve the environment."

He says the environment is becoming a focus in news reporting across the world, and this means that more students are becoming interested in sustainability issues.

"I think environmental improvement is an increasing agenda in the media, not only in Australia but in many parts of the world. So every day when we come across news in the media the children become more concerned and interested," he explains.

Professor Noel Gough of the Outdoor and Environmental Education Department at La Trobe University says he's known Professor Lee for fifteen years and the university was excited to bring him to Bendigo.

Professor Gough is the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Outdoor and Environmental Education at La Trobe, and he hopes Professor Lee's visit will help the university to forge links with other educational institutions in Asia.

"I know him as an excellent scholar in the fields of environmental education and curriculum studies," he says. "His work is not only of interest to our centre but also to some of the universities interests more broadly especially in terms of international programs. We have interests in markets such as China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and other places that John is very familiar with."

There are currently around 300 students studying Outdoor and Environmental Education courses at La Trobe University, and Professor Gough says new courses are being developed in this field.

"We've just introduced a course this year in environmental literacy for sustainable futures, and although the majority of the students we have on this campus are fairly mono-cultural on the undergraduate level, we actually have quite a multi-cultural cohort at the post-graduate level. At the moment we have students from India, Malaysia, Singapore, and students from Mexico and Brunei Darul Salaam."

He says these overseas students will gain from hearing Professor Lee's views.

"For some reason we get quite a mini-united nations at the post-graduate level, so talking to John about various cultural perspectives on education for sustainability will be quite important."

He says Professor Lee is an expert on cultural perspectives towards the environment, and he will be speaking about the ways this can influence environmental protection.

"People's relationship with nature is often governed by their cultural background. This can be both an ethical and religious sense so it's not surprising to find that Buddhists, Hindus, and people from Confucian heritage have different perspectives from largely Judeo-Christian cultures. "